Hello all,

Our music for this week comes to you courtesy of COVID-19.

My sister Ellie and I recorded Mozart’s Sonata in D Major for Violin & Piano during the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine. Today you’ll hear our interpretation of the second movement of this sonata.

Since Ellie and I were over 800 miles away from each other during quarantine, we had to get creative in making this recording. Ellie recorded first, listening to a metronome through headphones in order to stay at one tempo throughout the piece. She emailed me the recording of her part, and I listened to it in headphones while recording my part on a separate device. We then combined our two parts through a nifty iMovie feature that allows you to put two videos side-by-side while overlaying the two audio tracks.

This sonata is pure Mozart. Elegant, refined, and playful all at once. Balanced but never static. Simultaneously stately and childish. Listen to how the violin often imitates or repeats the melodies presented by the piano. This is typical of Mozart – making the piano (his instrument) the focal point and relegating the violin (or whatever instrument he is dealing with that is not the piano) to the imitation role.

Listen as well to the way that Mozart re-uses melodies in order to create for the listener a sense of familiarity. For instance, the primary melody is presented at 0:42 with a steady, plodding piano base underneath an expansive violin line. That melody comes back at the end of the movement (4:26), but this time it is goosebumps material. The piano rolls powerfully through deliciously rich triads that give the music a sense of forward movement and power that the initial melody lacks. It is a genius bit of recycling.

Enjoy!

T